Journalism about pwnage

Noob Rental Review – Resident Evil: Operation Raccoon City

I’m going to start by saying, to be completely fair, that this is not my kind of game. I’m writing this from the perspective of my love of melee heavy type battle systems, and my recently acquired love of running up to my enemies and chewing on their heads. (Hella-epic… Oh yes… I went there…)

Oh… Wait… That’s not what I’m supposed to be reviewing…

I was totally stoked to get back into Raccoon City and blow some zombies up. I didn’t even care that I’d have to use guns – which I suck at badly. I was determined to improve my mad shooting skill so I could immerse myself in the awesome story and epic battles.

It starts out promisingly. The menu screen is satisfyingly creep-tastic, with this freakish ultrasound zombie baby thing. There’s a little umbrella loading icon which makes me feel all nostalgic-like, especially because of the setting.

You can choose Campaign mode to play through the *cough* story, or you can play Versus to compete against other players. I thought it was cool when I had so many characters to pick from when choosing a team. The characters I had to choose from had interesting histories.

And then I was dropped into the middle of my first mission.

I waited for the awesome opening that would give me background. Story. A reason to *want* to mow through mobs of zombies with my least favorite weapon of choice, because nostalgia only motivates me so far. When there wasn’t much to go on other than – “Yep. The whole virus thing could have gone better. Oh gee, could you go clean that up for us so we don’t look bad?” – I kind of figured maybe they were going for the mysterious, shady motives sort of angle. I assumed there would be some deeper something going on eventually… I am reminded of that saying about what happens when one assumes…

There is a guy who shows up who has potential to add some depth to the story, but I couldn’t make myself care.

I didn’t make it beyond the second mission.

You get to pick a different character if you want for each mission, so even that aspect of the story is lacking. You don’t have a character to focus on with any kind of background that seems to actually matter as far as plot goes. You play on the side of Umbrella, trying to help them out. Unfortunately, I stopped caring mid-way through the first mission. Towards the end of the second mission I was pausing and putting the controller down mid-battle to go get a snack. Then I wandered over to the window and had a leisurely lunch. I even considered popping in a load of laundry. I went back to the game and killed everybody, and was really annoyed when there was a second wave of enemies.

Not a good start. Ideally, I want someone to have to pry my fingers off that controller with the jaws of life.

You just go from location to location, shooting zombies and Spec Ops teams. You can carry grenades, a first aid spray, an antiviral spray, and two guns, which is similar to…. oh, sorry, I was thinking of a different game there. You have three team members with you, which you can choose from the same pool as your team leader… sounds familiar. You, or any one of them, can be turned into zombies if you don’t have antiviral spray. If they die you can assist them, kind of like… hmmmm… You have to complete your mission in order to be picked up, just like… huh, what a coinkidink.

I also don’t like the save feature. You only have autosave in this game. There is no save option in the menu. And there is a bug I noticed – sometimes I’d duck behind cover and it wouldn’t let me stand and aim. I had to walk out of cover and back for the button to respond. Running also annoyed me. It felt clunky and awkward. Movement in general was a bit awkward.

Over all, I didn’t like this game. But, as I said, this could just be because it isn’t my type of game. Give it a shot if you like zombie games, and especially if you like Left 4 Dead. It has potential there I think, just not for me. 🙂

My Resident Evil: Operation Raccoon City Rating – Coaster, or Rental if you like Left 4 Dead